Instead, disturbing details about the gifted comedian’s tragic death were disclosed Tuesday by California investigators during a press conference that was broadcast live, live-streamed on the web and live-tweeted by media.

The press conference set off a firestorm of debate in social media and in newsrooms over the public disclosure of such intimate details when Williams’s own family had pleaded for privacy.

“There’s no doubt that it leads to copycat suicides and there will be an increase in suicides because this information — which is essentially how to commit suicide — is now in the public domain associated with Mr. Williams’s death,” said Dr. Simon Hatcher, a psychiatrist at The Royal in Ottawa and vice-chair of research in the department of psychiatry at the University of Ottawa.

“It goes against all the guidelines for reporting on suicides,” he said, which includes not putting emphasis on the methods used.

Disclosing such level of details provides easy access to knowledge about how to kill oneself, he said. “People don’t have to make the effort to go and look it up.”

‘I think it’s perfectly sensible to talk about suicide. You’ve just got to talk about it in a way which doesn’t kill the readers’

And when the suicide involves a celebrity, “it can seem quite an attractive way to solve problems, and especially with somebody like Robin Williams,” he added.

The suggestion in some media coverage that Williams’s brilliance was somehow related to him having a mental disorder, “makes it again somehow more acceptable to kill yourself,” Hatcher said.

“I think it’s perfectly sensible to talk about suicide,” he said. “You’ve just got to talk about it in a way which doesn’t kill the readers.”

Psychologist Frank Farley said the details around the discovery of Williams’s body would only fuel speculation about the actor’s mindset: Why did he do it this way, and not that way?

“It draws away from the things we should be focusing on, which is his fantastic legacy as an entertainer and comedian,” said Farley, an Edmonton native and past president of the American Psychological Association.

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Queen’s University mental health expert Dr. Heather Stuart also warned about the risk of copycat or cluster suicides.

There are stages of suicidal thinking, said Stuart, a professor in the department of public health sciences and holder of the Bell Canada mental health and anti-stigma research chair.

“You first think about, ‘Maybe I would be better off dead.’ At some point you start to formulate a plan: How would I do it? Would I take drugs? Would I shoot myself? And sometimes that’s where people are ambivalent,” she said.

“They want a plan that will work. They don’t want to wake up a vegetable and they don’t really have a lot of knowledge about what works and what doesn’t.”

The graphic details released in Williams’s death “might be giving them momentum, and getting them to think about viable plans when, if they didn’t have that information they might just remain ambivalent until somebody can help them and get the whole situation turned around.”

Profoundly public tragedies like the death of one of the most celebrated comedians in history should be used as an opportunity for increasing awareness around suicide, increasing early detection and breaking down stigma, she said.

Stuart is troubled by media commentary that Williams somehow “chose” suicide. People don’t “choose” to have depression, mania or any mental illness, she said.

“Suicide is a catastrophic outcome of a very significant illness. We wouldn’t dream of blaming someone for dying of cancer or heart disease. We just don’t even bring that mindset to the table.”

According to Statistic Canada, 3,728 Canadians committed suicide in 2011.

“With effective identification and treatment, and appropriate support, many of these deaths could be prevented,” Stuart said.

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There’s a big world out there, but it’s hard to see it when you’re sitting behind a desk, which is why writer Maryam Siddiqi took more than two weeks holiday. Actually, she took almost seven months to travel to 20 countries on four continents, documenting the journey the whole way. Visit our interactive map to see where Maryam went.